| Prof. Dr. Prabhu Kandachar |
 Prabhu Kandachar is Professor of Industrial Design Engineering with focus on Sustainable Materials and Manufacturing Technology and Chairman of the Department of Design Engineering, at the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering (IDE), Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands.
He is born and fully educated in India. He received his B.E. degree (Bachelor of Engineering) in Mechanical Engineering at the Mysore University in 1966. Following this he obtained his M.E. degree (Master of Engineering) in 1968 at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India. He continued his educational and research career at the same institute to obtain his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering. From thereon, he moved to The Netherlands.
His career at The Netherlands started at the Delft University of Technology, Delft, in 1975, with the Materials Science and Technology department. During a period of 5 years at Delft, he worked on environmentally friendly technologies for processing of aluminum. During this phase, he also got an opportunity to develop an affordable product for the foundry industry in Venezuela. In 1980, he joined the famous Dutch Aerospace company: Fokker Aerospace, at Schiphol, near Amsterdam. He worked there for 15 years, in various technical & management positions. Also during this phase, the search for and application of environmentally friendly materials and processes, such as aerospace adhesives and paints, demanded his attention. In 1995, he returned back to Delft, but this time to Industrial Design Engineering (IDE).
His teaching and research interests at IDE are focused on concretizing design ideas and concepts to artifacts. Also termed Embodiment Design, his attention in this phase of the design process is, among others on, materials and manufacturing technology related to product design, integrating technology and materials selection in design, etc.
Additionally he is also extensively involved in designing products & services for the emerging markets, with many action oriented projects in the last few years. Issues covered include water, healthcare, energy, housing, etc in countries like India, Indonesia, China, Brazil, Ghana, Tanzania, Honduras, Philippines, Pakistan, Madagascar, etc. He is currently directing research work on development of products & services on some healthcare issues of developing countries, including rural China and rural India. He has given several keynote lectures on this topic. He is also involved in research on ethical aspects of product development for developing countries. He has about 90 publications on his work.
Recently together with Professor Minna Halme of Helsinki School of Economics, he organized a conference at Helsinki on BoP, Sept. 26-27, 2008: Sustainable Innovations at the Base of the Pyramid. During this conference a book was launched: Sustainability Challenges and Solutions at the Base-of-the-Pyramid: Business, Technology and the Poor edited by Prabhu Kandachar and Minna Halme, published by Greenleaf.
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